{From Right Field is a column for Magic players on a budget or players who don’t want to play netdecks. The decks are designed to let the budget-conscious player be competitive in local, Saturday tournaments. They are not decks that will qualify a player for The Pro Tour. As such, the decks written about in this column are, almost by necessity, rogue decks. They contain, at most, eight to twelve rares. When they do contain rares, those cards will either be cheap rares or staples of which new players should be trying to collect a set of four, such as Wildfire, Llanowar Wastes, or Birds of Paradise. The decks are also tested by the author, who isn’t very good at playing Magic. His playtest partners, however, are excellent. He will never claim that a deck has an 85% winning percentage against the entire field. He will also let you know when the decks are just plain lousy. Readers should never consider these decks “set in stone” or “done.” If you think you can change some cards to make them better, well, you probably can, and the author encourages you to do so.}
Last week, I threw a trio of deck outlines (they had been tested but not rigorously so) at you as jumping off points for the class to refine their decks. Before getting to this week’s lesson and midterm exam, I thought that I’d answer some of the excellent questions that some of your classmates came up with.
Your assignments for the last two weeks has been to take a look at the six (yes, six) deck skeletons that I provided and see if anything tickled your fancy for States. (Legal Note: Fancy Tickling is illegal in some states. Please, consult your attorney if you’re worried about being caught.) Apparently, a lot of folks are tickled… by my audacity. Whatever gets yer rocks off, ladies.
As with last week, we’ll open up with some comments about the previous decks. Only one showed up regarding a deck from two weeks ago. The rest are from last week’s decks.
Q: Why didn’t you put Svogthos, the Restless Tomb, into the G/B Mortivore deck?
A: You know the lyric “Nobody’s perfect, not even a perfect stranger”? Apparently, it’s true. A recent study in The Journal of the International Academy of Psychiatric Medicine and Psychological and Social Sciences or JOTIAPMAPASS, as we like to call it for short, showed that, out of over twelve thousand people tested, no one was perfect. Except for Marisa Miller. Think about that. Eleven-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-nine out of twelve thousand people weren’t perfect. Remember that when you cast that first stone, little missy.
How did I skip Svogthos, the Restless Tomb in the G/B Mortivore deck? I’m not perfect. How would I change that? I’d drop a Swamp and a Forest for two of those puppies ASAP.
Q: Did you even test with Hand of Honor in the mono-White deck? It holds off the Horror token quite well.
A: Nope. Never crossed my mind. Why? Because, as I established scientifically with the previous answer, I’m not perfect. Looking at the deck, there has to be room for it in there. You have, what, four days to figure it out.
Q: The Glare of Subdual deck looks fun, but the Glare looks (ha ha; I get it) expensive mana-wise. Does it really work?
A: The Glare isn’t that expensive. Its converted mana cost is four. Moreover, unlike a lot of enchantments that do nothing but eat a Naturalize before they do anything useful (see, e.g., Honden of Anything), the Glare can do something right away. Even if you can’t cast it until turn 4, you should have a creature or two untapped. That means that the Glare lets you use it right away to tap down some creatures. Yeah!
Q: Why not use Charge Across the Araba in the mono-White deck? There should be plenty of mana to use it for an alpha strike.
A: Excellent idea! Figure out what you want to take out, and drop in a couple of Charges. Just don’t remove Gift of Estates to do it, or you’ll never get to the mana you need for the Charge. Of course, you don’t want to drop any critters, either, or the Charge isn’t very useful. Kinda tricky, with those restriction, innit? This making-a-decent-deck thing ain’t as easy as it looks, is it?
The Final Class
As often happens at the end of the semester, I find myself thinking about the class members that I’m going to miss. Often it’s a wide-eyed student who’s eager to learn. Usually, though, it’s the hard-bodied young ladies who wear the baby tees, the low-slung jeans, and the thongs. Yes, I will miss them a lot.
Enough of that, though. Howsabout a deck?
White Weenie – Splash Red (WW/r)
22 Lands
4 Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]
2 Mountain
16 Plains
23 Creatures
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Lantern Kami
3 Boros Recruit
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
4 Skyknight Legionnaire
15 Other Spells
4 Lightning Helix
3 Volcanic Hammer
4 Yamabushi’s Flame
4 Glorious Anthem
As you can see, there are a couple of hot White one-drops missing: Savannah Lions and Isamaru, Hound of Konda. They’re rares. The deck already has eight rares in it. If you have any of those two, feel free to drop Soul Wardens. If you have more than that, you’re on your own. Another creature to explore is Paladin en-Vec. I’m psyched that The Powers That Be decided that it would be okay to bring protection back to the Core set, and I’m very glad that this is they guy they chose to carry the standard for the return of that ability. I also considered the Soul Warden, but I ran out of time to actually test it. The Recruit is pretty dang good in an early fight, but Soul Warden gains a ton of life. Still, as we know lifegain can “bite my shiny metal a$$.” So, in the end, I’d probably stick with the Recruit.
Obviously, this deck would benefit greatly from the Sacred Foundry. If you’re luck enough to get any before States, drop that many Plains. I didn’t go very heavy on the Red cards, though, because, well, will you get four Sacred Foundrys before States?
Another Ravnica rare that fits the deck perfectly is Char. Any Chars would go right into the Yamabushi’s Flame slot. Hey, maybe I should give that one to JMS for his next set: Yamabushi’s Flame Slot. Whatever. I like Yamabushi’s Flame, better. Why?
Tiny Rant on Char
Char’s a great card. I hate it. To me, certain cards shouldn’t be rares. A simple burn spell – and that’s all that Char is – should never be rare.
“But Char can turn a game around, and it deals more damage than it costs!”
So what? Shock matches those criteria, too. It deals two damage for one mana, and, if all that’s standing between you and superior board position is a Grizzly Bear, it just turned the game around. Char is no more devastating than, say, Blaze can be. Look at it this way. If your opponent is at seven life, and you have eight mana open, Blaze can end the game. Char can’t, not without help anyway.
To me, rare burn spells need to be ones that have huge, game-altering effects. Earthquake is a rare. It can wipe out a bunch of stuff or even end the other guy’s game. Wildfire’s another good one. Char is a one-for-one, direct damage spell. It shouldn’t be rare.
End of Rant
Lab Results
Versus mono-Black (Hand): three wins, seven losses with similarly disappointing results against all of the other archetypes, the best being a split against non-Jitte packin’ mono-Red.
In the lab, we found that this deck didn’t do as well as the straight mono-White version. It seemed that the Jitte was the problem. Yeah, shocked, aren’t you? You see, the mono-White version from last week had ways to make sure that the Jitte was a non-factor. Suppression Field is just nuts against that Equipment while Bathe in Light makes sure that a creature carrying it deals no combat damage to the creature blocking it or blocked by it.
When presented with these results, my research partner Dr. William O. Bryant suggested Hearth Kami. I concur. Doing it over, I tested this without the Boros Recruits and one less Volcanic Hammer replaced by four Hearth Kamis.
Interestingly, Dr. Bryant also had a WW/r deck that did carry maindeck Jittes, and it was just rolling along. Sadly, I can’t divulge the exact decklist. However, there are enough hints so far today that, if you add Hokori, you should be able to figure it out. The new and improved (this is how you get people to notice the thing, Dr. B.) WW/r deck looked like this:
22 Lands
4 Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]
2 Mountain
16 Plains
24 Creatures
3 Suntail Hawk
3 Lantern Kami
3 Master Decoy
4 Hearth Kami
4 Leonin Skyhunter
3 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
4 Skyknight Legionnaire
14 Other Spells
4 Lightning Helix
2 Volcanic Hammer
4 Yamabushi’s Flame
4 Glorious Anthem
This version proved much more resilient against the other beatdown decks. It was 6-4 versus Black Hand and 6-4 against mono-Red. MUC still beat it, and I’m getting a little bit frustrated by those results. With the loss of Vedalken Shackles, isn’t mono-Blue Control supposed to be dead?
However, I digress. Kinda. Not really since I’m still talking about results. Anyway, the reason that this version preformed better against the beatdown decks than the previous version did was clearly the anti-Jitte cards, and that includes the Master Decoy. Yes, really. You see, you can only Equip the Jitte when you could play a sorcery. So, by properly using the Decoy – i.e. waiting until they enter their combat phase but before they declare attackers – you can make sure that an opponent’s Jitte never accumulates counters.
A New Jitte Theory
As a licensed Professor of the Trivial and Unimportant, I am free to spend a lot of my time thinking, pondering, and contemplating. My wife calls it “wasting time” or “hurry up; I need to use the bathroom, too,” but we know what it really is. Lately, I’ve been thinking about something that I’ve heard people say a lot since February.
“This is ridiculous. The first person to get a Jitte into play wins.”
If you’ve been beaten down by a single creature carrying the Jitte because you couldn’t keep enough creatures in play to do anything about it, you couldn’t find artifact destruction, and you couldn’t find your own Jitte to kill theirs, you might think this is true. It feels like it, doesn’t it?
I think we’re going about this backward, though. After much observation and meditation, I’ve developed this theory:
Theory of Jitte Superiority: He who gets the last Jitte to stay in play usually wins.
The facts are incontrovertible. It’s a Legendary permanent. It’s powerful. It swings the game in the favor of the person who has it. Logically, it should follow, then, that, if you get the last one into play, and it stays, you win.
This theory doesn’t contradict the original. Consider the situation alluded to above. Your opponent gets a Jitte onto a creature and you can’t find any answer. Who got the last Jitte to stay in play in that example? Your opponent.
Think about that. I’ll need a 2,200 word thesis either agreeing or disagreeing with that theory along with supporting data and citations. It’s due by class time on Friday, October 21st. That’s as much time as I can give you. States is the next day.
The Mono-Red R00lz Deck
I haven’t been able to find a good mono-Red deck yet, at least not one that isn’t chock-full-o’ rares. This is what I’ve been working towards.
23 Lands
22 Mountain
1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
23 Creatures
3 Frostling
3 Genju of the Spires
4 Hearth Kami
4 Ronin Houndmaster
3 Ghost-Lit Raider
3 Indentured Oaf
3 Ryusei, the Falling Star
14 Other Spells
4 Shock
3 Galvanic Arc
3 Fiery Conclusion
4 Volcanic Hammer
At first, I was more excited to use Galvanic Arc than Fiery Conclusion. Boy, am I stupid. Don’t get me wrong. The Arc is wonderful. Giving Ryusei or even Ronin Houndmaster First Strike is big. That three damage can clear the way, or it can end the game if you’re opponent is at three. Of course, you need a creature to put it on for it to work. This is why it’s down to three copies. Sometimes, there was no one out that I wanted to put it on. In a pinch, you can enchant an opponent’s creature to kill it or another, but that’s a desperation move.
Fiery Conclusion, though, is, pardon the pun, the bomb. How else does Frostling take down Kokusho? In addition, a Mountain – yes, a lowly Mountain! – can take down Meloku. All you need to do is turn the Mountain into a creature via Genju of the Spires.
Sadly, the only way I could get this deck to start beating up on the others in the gauntlet was – you guessed it – to add the Jitte. And Zo-Zu the Punisher. And lotsa other rares like Char. Sorry, gang. You’ll have to ask Dan Paskins how to make this one work. I’m outta ideas, and I’m outta time.
Interlude for the World’s Funniest Almost-Dirty Joke
A guy walks into his doctor’s office. “What seems to be the problem, son?” asks the doctor.
“Well, doc, um, my, uh, pen!s is orange.”
“Orange?!? You know, son, of course, when there’s a problem with the genitals, the first thing I have to ask about is your sex partners.”
The guy kinda slumps. “Actually, doc, I haven’t had sex in over nine months.”
“Nine months, you say? Well, you’re a healthy young man. You’re doing something for sexual release, aren’t you?”
“Oh, sure. I like to watch p0rn and eat cheese puffs.”
The One I’ll be Playing
With all of that out of the way, I thought you might want to see what I’m going to be playing in Nashville this weekend.
Hondens
23 Lands
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Brushland
9 Forest
3 Island
1 Karplusan Forest
1 Mountain
6 Plains
1 Yavimaya Coast
12 Creatures
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Kami of False Hope
4 Thought Courier
25 Other Spells
4 Telling Time
4 Honden of Infinite Rage
4 Honden of Cleansing Fire
4 Wrath of God
3 Honden of Life’s Web
3 Honden of Seeing Winds
3 Rampant Growth
This deck has been tearing up the others except for – you guessed it – MUC against which it’s a mere five-and-five. For a while, I had Hinder in the maindeck, but there just aren’t that many maindeck spells that this has to worry about countering. If I think my opponent has Cleanfall, I can bring Hinder in from the sideboard.
Truth be told, the best change was dropping Kodama’s Reach for Rampant Growth. Between the Growth and the Elder, you’re almost assured of getting a third-turn Red Shrine. That is a key to this deck’s success.
Of course, getting a turn 3 Honden’s not a game-breaker. The deck survives the early game with Kami of False Hope and the Elder. Telling Time is simply monstrous, allowing you to get just what you need. The mid game is all about Wrath and the Shrines. Once you hit the late game, it should be all yours.
The one slot that I would change if I had the cards is the Thought Courier slot. Don’t get me wrong. He’s good at digging through to that last Shrine or the Wrath that you need. However, you might want to test this without the Thought Couriers and with two each of Meloku and Keiga, the Tide Star. While neither plays well with Wrath – nothing left for Keiga to take and no way to keep tokens around – they’re mighty, mighty fine any other time.
This is The End, My Friend
It’s down to crunch time. By now, you should know the deck that you want to play. You should be making the tweaks to it, not switching decks. You should also be looking at sideboard cards.
First and foremost, you need some way to hose up decks that want to play Funny Graveyard Tricks. I suggest Nezumi Graverobber for Black decks and Reito Lantern for everyone else. By the way, one tip for playing the G-Robber. Don’t just drop him on turn 2. Wait until you have some mana to yank stuff from their ‘yard. Yes, it’s nice to flip him, but you really want to rip stuff from their graveyard consistently. If you drop him too early, he’ll die before he gets to do anything. Lately, instead of getting him flipped, I’ve been making sure that I keep one innocent card like a basic land in their ‘yard at all times.
You also need to be able to kill or neutralize the Jitte. Green, White, and Red don’t have any problems with that. They have artifact destruction. Blue can steal things. Black is going to have to team up. Remember how the “mono” Black deck had Red in it? That was for Smash. Remember, there won’t be any Oblivion Stone once Ravnica’s legal in Standard.
Now. Go. Win some prizes. Give me some.
Dr. Christopher B. Romeo, J.D.